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 Three years ago, Frances Allard left her past behind to become a teacher at Miss Martin’s school for girls in Bath. One Christmas after visiting her elderly great-aunts, Frances’s carriage gets stuck in a snowstorm. Behind her is Lucius Marshall, Viscount Sinclair, a man who has just been admonished to settle down and take a wife. When his carriage knocks hers off the road, he is obliged to escort her to a mostly abandoned country inn. Two days is all it takes for them to cast a spell over each other, but Frances will not be his mistress and Lucius knows his grandfather has his ailing heart set on Lucius’s marriage with Portia Hunt. Three months later, Frances and Lucius meet again by chance, but he knows this time that he can’t let her slip away from him again.
This is the second book I’ve read by Mary Balogh and I found it just as enchanting as the first (Simply Perfect). We know from almost the beginning that Frances has “a past” which is preventing her from saying yes to marrying Lucius or even allowing him to court her, but that doesn’t stop his journey to win her over from making us fall in love with him. He’s a little too arrogant in his knowledge of what’s good for her, but the thing is, she does want to do everything he tries to get her to do, including marry him. She just has to break down the boundaries of her past first, and only by forcing her into society again will that happen, although Lucius doesn’t know it at the time. I did think Frances’s issues with her past a little exaggerated once we learn what they are, but this is not a romance which is heavy of external plot, nor does it matter.
Besides the characters, I also liked how this book portrays the struggle of contentment versus happiness. Contentment is generally relatively easy to attain. I’m content when I’m reading or thinking about history. I’m happy when I’m with Keith, and believe me, it was difficult and risky to get where we are today, and it’s going to be still more difficult to get where we want to be. It’s absolutely worth it. In this book, Frances is content as a schoolteacher and might even be content with her other beau. Lucius could be content with Portia and children. Together, they would be happy but it’s hard and risky to get there. I like that. It rings true to life and reminds us why taking risks to go after what we really want is so worth it. Doesn’t have to be a person of course, it’s true in all aspects of life.
Overall, I found this to be a moving and enjoyable novel. Definitely a worthy read for anyone who would like a little more romance in their lives. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
This book is available from Amazon and Amazon UK .
 Isidore, the Duchess of Cosway, has never met her husband, and at 23 years of age, she is getting impatient. In Duchess by Night, she goes to the country’s most scandalous house party because she knows that will lure him back to her. She is tired of being a virgin, of being single, and wants to start a family and feel like a real wife. Her scheme works and Simeon Jermyn, the Duke of Cosway, returns to her side, only to suggest that they annul their marriage. She is clearly not the woman he expects and after spending years learning to calm himself and avoid all temptations, her passionate nature is simply too much for his restraint. Isidore can’t let that annulment happen, not after all her years of waiting and when she likes the duke so much, and decides to break through Simeon’s barriers at any cost.
I feel that Eloisa James has hit her stride in this installment of the series. I have moderately liked the two out of three that I have read of the series, but this one was stunning and made me seriously long for the last two stories. I finally felt that the love story here was given the time it deserved. No one changed beyond expectations, the main characters’ interactions sparkled, and I grew even more attached to the secondary characters; Jemma, her husband the Duke of Beaumont, and the Duke of Villiers. They were properly behind the main storyline but I felt that each of their characters has been growing and changing in an impressive manner and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
One quirk that I’ve never come across in romance before is the couple’s lack of experience. Isidore has not slept with or even kissed any other man. Shockingly, neither has Simeon kissed or slept with any woman. The scene in which they both share their first kiss is amazing. It was also a fantastic change of pace to have the characters figuring out what to do in the bedroom. It’s awkward and adorable and best of all, furthers their relationship more than you’d find in most of these books. I liked Simeon better for his lack of rakeish behavior, actually. Romance novel heroes have a reputation. They are men who have experienced all there is, who are experts at the seduction of women. This one? The first time for these two is the epitome of embarrassing. I had to love both of them more after that.
I really have to revise my opinion of these books. If the last two, This Duchess of Mine and A Duke of Her Own live up to the promise in this book, this may become one of my favorite romance series. Simply put, I loved it. I can’t wait to get my hands on the last two of the series.
Amazon | IndieBound | Amazon UK | Powell’s
Bookfiend, Belinda, and Telynor, you won To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt! I will be emailing you shortly; if I haven’t gotten there yet and you’re impatient, feel free to email me at meghankk at gmail dot com. Your books will be arriving directly from the publisher.
 An idea I got from The Toddled Dredge (via K for Kat). Here’s what she said:
“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ “
I just posted photos similar to these recently, but there’s no harm in putting them up again! This is only a tiny fraction of my total TBRs. Last I counted I had about 60 here. In total I have listed on LT here 337 if you’d like to take a look and scold me about what I haven’t read and totally should (please do, those piles are intimidating!), but that doesn’t include all the books that have arrived at home since I left. I’m sure I’m not alone with my TBR mountain range though!
Here are my shelves (including my DS, PSP, and a couple of PC games if any of my readers are gamers):
  And my little TBR pile, which are supposedly the books I’m reading next.
 I haven’t been doing so well with the little TBR pile. At least it feels that way; I read 6 books that weren’t on it last week! Now I’m just hoping to finish the two I’m reading before tomorrow night so I can take a couple off the top for my trip. My reading at home will be all ARCs. I’m not going home again for six months, but my parents are coming to visit me somewhere in between, so I’ll definitely be supplementing these 60 with books from my huge stacks there.
Do you have crazy unread piles too?
 From the back cover:
When mapmakers of the distant past came to the end of the known world, they would inscribe “Here There Be Sea Monsters.” When Tori Murden McClure attempted to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a 23 foot plywood boat with no motor or sail, she had no idea what kind of monsters she would find. Despite deep solitude and perilous conditions, McClure was a loner determined to prove what one person with a mission can do. But when she is brought to her knees by the worst hurricane season in the history of the North Atlantic, she must signal for help and go home in what she thinks is disgrace.
Back in Kentucky, her life begins to change in unexpected ways. She falls in love and learns to embrace her own vulnerability. So with her friends and her lover, she devises a strategy that will carry her to the opposite shore. With a wry sense of humor and a strong voice, McClure gives readers a true memoir of an explorer who maps her world with rare emotional honesty.
As with most memoirs, this one doesn’t just cover Tori’s journey across the Atlantic but flashes back through her life and her motivations for embarking on such a difficult and dangerous trip. She writes about her brother, mentally disabled and abused, the fights that she got into as a child, her entry into a more prestigious academic world and her successful attempt to embrace her own talents. Tori is a remarkable woman and in the pages of this memoir, she explains in clear, compelling language both her life and her journeys across the Atlantic Ocean.
I was fascinated by all the boat details mentioned in this book. The book has a diagram of Tori’s boat at the front and throughout she explains just what she’s doing when she rows, where her stuff is, how she feels in her tiny cabin, and so on. Every gory detail about the blisters on her hands, on her feet, her various aches and pains, and so on are included to really make us feel the pain she’s in. This is especially so during the hurricane; we don’t find out what’s causing all the problems at the time, but it seemed fairly obvious to me. The boat capsizes a ridiculous number of times and Tori is thrown about her little cabin. At one point, she thinks about ending it because she is in so much pain, very alone, and her demons have come out to get her. Luckily, she doesn’t, and the next day calls for rescue. I was actually relieved for her.
Tori’s emotional development is quite moving as well. Between stories of her difficult childhood and independent adolescence and early adulthood, it’s hard to believe that she opens herself up to others as much as she does by the end of her memoir. Her personal growth while she’s out alone on the boat is valuable not only to her but to us as well. She faces down her demons and wins; I would hope that most of us need not end up in a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to do the same ourselves!
I enjoyed this memoir far more than I was expecting to. It’s well written, compelling, and packs a punch for a book that’s about a woman rowing alone across the ocean. Tori has lived an exciting and eventful life and it’s extremely encouraging to read about a woman who achieves her dreams through hard work and determination. In a world consumed with celebrity memoirs, this is a breath of fresh air and certainly worth your time.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon | Amazon UK
 When we first heard about Beach Trip, my mom knew she wanted to read it right away. So she had the first crack at the review copy and here are Carolyn’s thoughts!
Beach Trip is a story of four girls: Mel, a mystery writer living in New York, Sara, an Atlanta attorney, Annie, a successful Nashville businesswoman, and Lola, sweet-tempered and absentminded, who all went to college together. After 23 years they agree to go on a week vacation to Lola’s lavish North Carolina beach house. They go here in an attempt to relive the carefree days of their college years. But as the week wears on and each woman’s hidden story is gradually revealed, these four friends learn that they must inevitably confront their shared past: a failed love affair, a discarded suitor, a betrayal, and a secret that threatens to change their bond, and their lives, forever.
I found Beach Trip to be the kind of book that once you start reading it you don’t want to put it down. All the characters in the book are so real and likeable. I would like to be friends with these woman. Mel, with her strength and her inability to have a lasting relationship probably caused by her dysfunctional childhood. Sara, who is struggling with her son’s autism. Annie, who is struggling with her inappropriate affair with a professor in her college years. Lola, whose her sad life has led to her being kept away from her true love and being controlled by her mother and husband. That’s just to name a few of the many things that happen in these woman’s lives told to us by this wonderful author.
Cathy Holton wrote a terrific book. She gives us so much information about each of these woman. She tells us about them from their childhood up to present time. They all have very complicated and very real lives. In so many books you read, everyone is beautiful and has perfect lives. These women could be any one of us. Their parents weren’t perfect and they themselves all made plenty of mistakes. The all survived through the good and the bad.
The only part I didn’t like about this book was I felt that there was excessive drinking of alcohol. I don’t think you need to get drunk to have a good time or to reconnect with your friends.
I would recommend this book, it is a wonderful read. It is a book about real woman and real lives. Read it with a friend because you will want to discuss it with someone as you’re reading it. It also had a shocking ending, which I loved and never saw coming.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon
 With his mother dead, Arda can finally relax and look back on his life. When he was fourteen, his father was assassinated, but Arda doesn’t seem to regret this very much at first, too busy relaxing in the lap of wealth and luxury. Meanwhile, the assassin Bedirhan, living in the same city, has decided to give up his job. As the story unfolds, we learn that Bedirhan was the man who murdered Arda’s father, but that they have a surprising amount in common. When Arda’s life is in danger, only the clues provided by his parents’ friend Selcuk Altun will lead him to his father’s killer and the answers that he desperately craves.
I’m afraid this book gets a solid “meh” from me. Quotes on the back of the book promise “a brilliantly edgy, witty thriller” and a deep insight into life in Istanbul. I didn’t feel that I got either of those things; certainly the book was not very exciting until the very end. At one point, Arda is nearly raped and murdered, saved by a mysterious gunman, but I wasn’t particularly worried about him. I was, rather, annoyed at his musings regarding his youthful crush and probably wouldn’t have minded if he’d kicked the bucket in such a violent way. This is even more the case when we learn that his father actually slept with said youthful crush. Color me disgusted with the book; not even a compelling narrative and I have to read about pedophilia?
That isn’t to say I felt more sympathy for the other narrator, Bedirhan, because I didn’t. I actually had a hard time distinguishing between the two. The prose isn’t exactly distinct, which may be either the author or the translator’s fault, or my own for not reading carefully enough, and the only signal of the change is an A or a B as a chapter heading. I did not get this at first, I thought that the chapters might be lettered rather than numbered. Silly me, yes, but also confusing when I finally realized someone else was talking!
Were I interested in this book in a literary sense, I think I could have pulled a lot out of it. There is, for one thing, the contrast between the character of Selcuk Altun and the author of the book Selcuk Altun. What is his motive in putting himself here, especially given that the book is written in first person? Secondly, there is a frequent mention of a book entitled Songs My Mother Taught Me. Clearly, given Arda’s abrasive relationship with his mother, this one is easily explained with regards to the title. I’m not, however, very interested in a book that is hard to enjoy without picking it apart. I do enjoy literary fiction with a deeper meaning, but not if the book is impenetrable otherwise, and for me, this one was a very difficult read.
I would like to conclude this review, however, with the last line of the book. Don’t worry, it gives nothing away:
I thought that only film stars shed tears with their eyes shut.
I don’t know why that line caught me, but it did, and so I thought I’d share.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 Tally can’t wait to be a pretty. Her best friend has already turned 16 and had the operation. Against all the rules, Tally sneaks into New Pretty Town and visits him, promising to do nothing to risk remaining an ugly forever. In that short summer, Tally meets Shay, another ugly who shares Tally’s birthday. The two become fast friends, but Shay, disturbingly, does not want to be a pretty. When Shay sneaks away just before their birthday, Tally is forced to go find her or never become a pretty; but after all that she discovers, does she really want to be one?
Uglies was such a fascinating book. I’m very into YA dystopian novels. Actually, I like most of them, but adult versions can get very depressing. This one reminded me in some ways of The Giver, a fantastic book that I’ve read countless times over the years. Both kids learn that their perfect, happy society is not at all what it seems in the end and that maybe they don’t want to conform to their society’s expectations of them.
Since I knew something was “wrong” with pretties, or at least something wasn’t good about them, I do have to confess I found myself frustrated with Tally for being so excited about the transition. I didn’t know what it was, though, and as I was impatient to find out, I found myself racing through the book. It’s a fairly quick read, I got through it in an evening, but the desire to know did not outweigh the pleasure that I found in these pages. Tally becomes a wonderful character, growing and changing and becoming more interesting. I love when this happens and when it’s believable. She makes mistakes and she learns from them. I’m not sure any of the secondary characters enjoyed a similar level of personability or character development, but there isn’t enough space with the dynamic, fast-moving plot.
I loved the little details about Tally’s world and how it has changed and I hope that in the following books, we get to learn more. It’s great when she finds old magazines and finds people who aren’t pretties being defined as beautiful, when she travels through the old rusted city and rides the roller coaster, or the orchid that eradicates all other plant life. Her own world is interesting too, with walls that can produce any movie she’d like, the endless parties in New Pretty Town, and the suburbs where all of the older pretties live. Again, I hope it in the next few, we can explore a little more outside this particular settlement.
Uglies was an interesting, thoughtful, but exciting and at times intense read. I think it can be appreciated by adults and young adults alike. There is enough here to ponder over while still providing a compelling story. I recommend it and I really look forward to the rest of the series, since this one ends in a cliffhanger!
 Cornelia was working in the cafe one day when Martin Grace walked in, suave and sexy and the image of a modern day Cary Grant. Amazingly, he asks Cornelia to go to London with him, that day. She refuses, but he still calls. And sends her flowers. Martin Grace, however, is not the love that comes into Cornelia’s life. That comes later, in the shape of a little girl named Claire Hobbes, whose mother is not herself and whose father is not very interested in her. With the help of her brother-in-law, Teo, and her friends and family, Cornelia learns what love is.
This book promised me a modern day fairy tale, and in a way, it delivered just that, but in a very contemporary setting and tone of voice. I loved both Claire and Cornelia. I love their separate voices and the love that developed between them. I adored Claire’s stubborness and Cornelia’s dreams and the way that they meshed. From the minute Cornelia played with a baby in the first few pages, I knew what was going to happen for her in this book, but I loved the way it unfolded.
Actually, I didn’t predict all of it; some things I did not foresee immediately. In that sense, this isn’t a typical romance; Martin isn’t really the love that’s walking in, although the book makes it sound that way at first. Rather, he is the change that allows Cornelia to embrace love in her life. I liked that. Cornelia says this at the beginning, so I’m not giving anything away.
I also really liked the writing in this book. Unfortunately I have already had to return it to the library, so I don’t have any quotes, but you can certainly see the result of the author’s degrees! The prose is simultaneously beautiful and personable; it’s as if the characters are talking to you, but they’ve put a great deal of thought into their words. I loved that she threw in so many movie references while citing Cornelia’s addiction to classic movies. I haven’t watched a ton of old movies, but I have seen enough of the classics to get who she was talking about and it really enhanced my ability to visualize the characters, something that I generally struggle with.
Overall, this was a charming, enchanting read. This is another one of my finds through book blogging and I’m so grateful to have discovered so many fantastic titles lately! I have Belong to Me, the sequel, waiting for me at home, and I can’t wait to read it. Love Walked In has my enthusiastic recommendation.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 It’s 1914. Tensions are about to erupt in Europe. John Somerville, however, has problems of his own to worry about. He’s excavating what he believes to be a forgotten Assyrian palace in Mesopotamia, part of the gigantic Ottoman Empire. Unluckily for him, the Germans are coming with a railroad that will go right through Tell Erdek, his precious site, the excavation of which he has self-financed for three years in a desperate bid to make a name for himself. Along with him is his younger colleague, Palmer, who has a passion for ancient writing; his wife Christine, who thrives on Somerville’s enthusiasm and purity of passion; Patricia, a grad student who is at the forefront of the feminist movement and very outspoken; and Jehar, an Arab man who feeds Somerville information in exchange for the gold to win him the love of his life. Into this mess arrives Elliott, an American geologist masquerading as an archaeologist to gain information about oil. Every character’s loyalties are tested as tensions escalate not only between European powers but at the excavation site itself.
I’d heard, before starting this book, that others really struggled with it, abandoning it and giving it away. I thought it was going to be terrible. Once again, I put it off. When I finally did read it, I could see in some cases what those who disliked this book thought about it. For one thing, it’s quite political. A lot of time is spent discussing the importance of the oil and the conflicts between the countries who are racing to get it. Nor are all the characters likeable. Christine spends time feeling disdainful towards Patricia because she is too outspoken. The mere idea that women could vote shocks Christine, who desires nothing more than to spend her life supporting a powerful and influential man. Can you tell that Christine made me gag a little? Okay, a lot.
On the bright side, though, despite its faults I found myself loving the book. I have to say being an aspiring historian and secret fan of the exciting part of archaeology really helped me in that. If I didn’t feel as excited about Somerville’s discovery as he did, the book would have totally fallen flat for me. There is something fascinating about pulling history out of the ground and this is just what Somerville is doing and what he’s passionate about. How could I not love a guy like him? This is even if he is a bit uncertain about himself, especially given that it’s hard to blame him. As soon as he realized that there was something amazing down there, I was hooked.
I also found this book incredibly politically relevant. I’m often irritated that so many of the problems in the Middle East have to do with European powers stepping in and carving up arbitrary countries for their own benefit. Here we have a novel that is set just as this is happening; we have a character who is unearthing the enthralling past of these areas which are now war-torn from intervention and internal turmoil and conflict. And hardly for the last time, it is all about oil. While set firmly in the past, this book also sheds light on how we got to this point in history ourselves. I think it also shows how our disregard for history leads us to repeat the mistakes we have made over and over again.
In conclusion, this is definitely a book worth reading. I highly recommend it, especially to those who love history and/or secretly wish they could be on Time Team. While I wait for that day to come, I’ll be seeking out more of Barry Unsworth’s works.
IndieBound | Powell’s | Amazon
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